Gold prices rose on Thursday and pushed the most active gold futures contract to a six-week high on the back of a weak dollar and expectations of rising inflation in the coming months.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell comments that the bank would like to see actual evidence of economic growth before considering any policy tightening. He also reiterated expectations that the expected rise in inflation this year will be temporary.
The dollar index dropped to 92.00, losing more than 0.5%. The index was last seen at 92.07, down about 0.4%.
Falling 10-year US Treasury yields also boosted gold.
Gold futures for June rose $ 16.60, or nearly 1%, to $ 1,758.20 an ounce, the highest settlement since February 25.
Silver May futures rose 1.3% to $ 25.590 an ounce, while May copper futures rose nearly 1% to $ 4.10 a pound.
Data released this morning by the Labor Department showed that first-time US jobless claims rose unexpectedly in the week ending April 3 to 744,000, up 16,000 from the previous week’s revised 728,000.
Jobless claims rose for the second straight week after falling to an annual low of 658,000 in the week ending March 20.
The continued growth surprised economists, who had expected jobless claims to fall to 680,000 from the 719,000 originally announced the previous month.
The material is provided by InstaForex – www.instaforex.com.
Crude Oil May 21 
